Texas schools diffuse bomb threat with PR

ALLEN, TX: A North Texas school district plagued by bomb threats
following the Littleton, CO, tragedy has hired a PR firm to avoid
repeating the media relations missteps it took near the end of the last
term.

ALLEN, TX: A North Texas school district plagued by bomb threats
following the Littleton, CO, tragedy has hired a PR firm to avoid
repeating the media relations missteps it took near the end of the last
term.

ALLEN, TX: A North Texas school district plagued by bomb threats

following the Littleton, CO, tragedy has hired a PR firm to avoid

repeating the media relations missteps it took near the end of the last

term.

The LeMaster Group has been given about three weeks and dollars 13,000

to help the Allen Independent School District (AISD) inform the

community of security and counseling measures for the new school

year.

The Littleton shootings morbidly inspired juvenile pranksters to

threaten schools across the country. In this affluent Dallas suburb, the

AISD handled more than its share, having been forced to evacuate

campuses eight times in response to 12 threats over a two-week

period.

In May, the media reported that the school board voted to cancel classes

as a result of the threats. But two days later, the district claimed it

only intended to curtail the schedule. ’We were trying to say something

was going to happen, but we didn’t know exactly what,’ spokesman Tim

Carroll told The Dallas Morning News.

Since then, the AISD has hired the Revell Group, led by a former FBI

associate deputy director, to study its security plans. It then spent

about dollars 1 million on security equipment, personnel and policy

revisions.

The consultants were among those who suggested the district might want

to bring in some outside PR help.

’When you want to do something right the first time, you’ve got to get